


Where Once the Queen

by Grevling



Category: 10th Kingdom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:13:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grevling/pseuds/Grevling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Are you lost, my child? Are you lost? Let me show you the way. Come to me. Come with me, and you will lose your pain...forever.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Once the Queen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sinesteraglets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinesteraglets/gifts).



> Betaed by Kastaka.

The Queen, as is well known throughout the Nine Kingdoms, was neither born nor made: popular lore says that she simply _appeared_ out of the woods, cloaked in velvet and power and already irresistibly charming. To the citizens of the Fourth Kingdom, for whom enchanted sleeps and magic mirrors are commonplace, she was a delightful distraction. Her odd ways and curious ignorance of the most basic facts of life in the Kingdoms lent themselves easily to the fanciful tales the bards spun of princesses in disguise, and magical amnesia, and, of course, the Swamp Witch.

This is, as with all popular myths, entirely untrue.

***

The woman who existed before the Queen was the princess of New York. Not in the way the bards would like you to believe, with a royal pedigree and a castle, but in every way that counted in the Tenth Kingdom. She was wealthy, and beautiful, and her mother knew all the right people. She had her pick of any eligible suitor in Manhattan, with whom she flirted outrageously, and her coronation ball was more than any fairytale princess could have dreamed of.

Unfortunately, the rules of fairytales do not apply in the Tenth Kingdom like they do in the other Nine, and her true love never came to sweep her off her feet and carry her away to a life of ease and painless joy. Instead she met Tony, who swept her off into his rusty pick-up for a life of crying children and housework. None of the stories had ever mentioned that spit-up was a part of Happily Ever After.

But she worked through it, the same stubbornness that let her marry Tony against her mother's wishes now directed at the less glamorous tasks of motherhood. And she raised her daughter, her Virginia, the one bright spot in her otherwise drab life, the apple of her eye.

She taught Virginia all about fairytales, and true love, and magic, and nothing at all about disappointment. She let Virginia play with her clothes, the only remnant she had of her charmed life, and called her _princess_. She vowed to never let Virginia be dragged down like she herself had been – her daughter would fly free, straight to the highest levels of society, beautiful with her mother's gowns and her father's smile, and she would never want for anything.

Then, one day, a voice spoke to her softly, like a friend offering sensitive advice, just barely audible over the splashing of dishes in the sink.

 _Why would you let her grow up to be like you, my child?_ it asked, the words caressing her ear. _You are so sad; and yet still you tell her about princesses, and balls, and magic kingdoms where the clock never strikes twelve and the prince never turns back into a_ plumber.

She gripped a plate, hard, the slick edges digging into the meat of her palm, and bit her tongue against her useless retort.

 _But soon she will realize the truth of things,_ the voice continued. _Will she thank you, I wonder? Why give her hope when you already know that there is no such thing as happily ever after?_

She stood at the sink for nearly an hour, her hands slowly pruning up in the cooling dishwater, before she was drawn out of her reverie by her daughter's hand on her thigh, asking for a glass of water. She shook off the voice, and smiled at Virginia as if nothing was wrong, wiggling her wrinkled fingers in front of her nose to make her laugh.

But soon the stories changed; the princes became monsters, the princesses were lost forever in the woods, and Virginia learned to stop asking for them.

***

The day that Virginia Lewis was almost killed by her mother was just like any other.

Which just goes to show.

***

She was filling up the tub with warm water, turning up the heat each time she ran her hands underneath it. Hotter, hotter, _hotter_ , she couldn't feel a thing, she couldn't get _clean_ , her hands caked with dirt and the smell of bleach that never came out from underneath her nails, and it wouldn't go _away_ -

 _I can make it_ all _disappear, my child_ , the voice said to her, cutting across the sound of running water. _Come to me, and your hands will never be dirtied again. Leave the child and come, come to ME!_

The creak of the door distracted her, and she unclenched her hands from the edge of the tub to turn off the water, trying to turn off the voice in her head as well. She gave Virginia a smile that she didn't quite mean, and helped her get into the tub, scrubbing vigorously at her back, trying to get the dirt off her hands – the filth she would feel but not see. And suddenly the voice was back, but it was stronger this time, scraping over her nerves, blinding her.

_She has nothing to live for in this world! You have promised her love, and happiness, and you have LIED! Her life will be nothing but a disappointment – she should have been killed at birth!_

She looked down, suddenly, startled to realize that she had been holding Virginia under the water, her hands slick with soap and raw with scrubbing. Virginia's eyes were closed, and no bubbles were escaping her mouth. She released her hold on Virginia's shoulders and rocked back on her heels, hands clenching at her hair. The voice was gone.

***

_This is not what happened._

Christine stared at the still body of her daughter, tiny face obscured by the rippling water. Her breath came in quick little gasps, hands fluttering useless in the air as she slowly shattered, folding to her knees beside the tub. She clasped her hands over her ears, protecting them from the awful silence surrounding her, and waited for the sirens to arrive. She never heard the voice again.

***

_This is._

Somehow she made it through the city unharmed, not bothering to dodge pedestrians or vehicles in her frenzy. She ran toward the park, away, away from the tub, away from the silence. She stretched her hands out in front of her, her filthy, dirty, awful hands, and grabbed onto the bark of a tree at the edge of the road, scraping her hands against its rough surface. She didn't realize she was crying until the tears dripped down her nose and onto her scratched hands. And, suddenly, the voice spoke again.

 _Are you lost, my child?_ it implored, coming from somewhere outside herself, and she searched for it, blinded by tears.

 _Are you lost?_ it repeated. _Let me show you the way._ She stumbled through the trees, her mind desperately focusing on only the voice, and suddenly she saw it: a patch of air that didn't match the rest, rippling like the surface of a pool, like her vision ghosted with tears.

 _Come to me_ , it whispered, and a hand reached out. She extended a hand of her own slowly, as if it was no longer part of her, and grasped it, her mind still reeling in shock.

 _Come with me_ , it said, as she was pulled into the rippling air, _and you will lose your pain... forever!_ And as she is dragged down, down, down, she hopes that the voice is right.

***

Years the later, the Queen will remember this, when she is lying on a ballroom floor, four drops of blood on her cheek and her daughter crying beside her. Years of hiding her hands from herself in gloves, decades spent trying to kill someone else's child, an eternity spent emotionless, bloodless. _Painless._

She will recognizes that the girl – that _Virginia_ , is crying, tears dropping from her eyes to land silently on the Queen's velvet robes, and she will reach out, just this once wishing that her hands were bare, to touch her daughter's cheek. “It is too late,” she will say, gasping in her last few breaths of air as she touches her daughter's face for the last time. “Don't cry, my little girl.” Another pained inhale. “My little girl.” And she will look, just once, into Virginia's eyes, though her mind is fourteen years away.

_I gave away my soul._


End file.
